“And you had to pocket the loss, Kate?” I said.

“It was my gain,” she replied.  “Ben had always been dictatorial before; but after that, I had only to smile to remind him of his fallibility, and I have been mistress here ever since.”

So far had I written when your welcome letter arrived.  Kate found me this morning sighing over it, pen in hand, ready to reply.  She put on her imperious look, and said she forbade my writing, if I grew gloomy over it.  She feared my letters were only the outpourings of a disappointed spirit.  Indulgence in grief she considered weak, foolish, unprincipled, and egotistical.

“I can’t help being egotistical,” I replied, “when I see no one, and am shut up in the ‘little world of me,’ as closely as mouse in trap.  And with myself for a subject, what can my letters be but melancholy?”

“Anybody can write amusing letters, if they choose,” said Kate, reckless both of fact and grammar.

“Unless I make fun of you, what else have I to laugh at?”

“Well, do!  Make fun of me to your heart’s content!  Who cares?”

“You promise to laugh with us, and not be offended?”

“I promise not to be offended.  My laughing depends upon your wit.”

“There is no mirth left in me, Kate.  I am convinced that I ought to say with Jacques, ‘’Tis good to be sad, and say nothing.’”

“Then I shall answer as Rosalind did,—­’Why, then, ’tis good to be a post!’ No, no, Charlie, do be merry.  Or if you cannot, just now, at least encourage ‘a most humorous sadness,’ and that will he the first step to real mirth.”

“I shall never be merry again, Lina, till you let me recall Mr. ——.  That care weighs me down, and I truly believe retards my recovery.”

“Hush, Charlie!” she said, imperiously.

“Now, dear Kate, do not be obstinate.  My position is too cruel.  With the alleviation of knowing your happiness secure, I could bear my lot.  But now it is intolerable, utterly!”

She was silent.

“You must give me that consolation.”

“To say I would ever leave you, Charlie, while you are so helpless, would be to tell a lie, for I could not do it.  Mr. ——­ is a civil engineer.  He is always travelling about.  I should have no settled home to take you to.  How can you suppose I would abandon you?  Do you think I could find any happiness after doing it?  Let us be silent about this.”

“I will not, Kate.  I am sure, that, besides being a selfish, it would be a foolish thing to submit to you in this matter.  I shall linger, perhaps, until your youth is gone, and then have the pang, far worse than any other I could suffer, of leaving you quite alone in the world.  Do listen to reason!”

She sat thinking.  At last she said, “Well, wait one year.”

“That would be nonsensical procrastination.  Does not the doctor declare that a year will not better my condition?”